Tea and Sympathy
by TeaLogic
Summary: Post 2x22 oneshot. Joan wants comfort but seems to only find new horrors. Warnings for angst, talks of nightmares and torture.


A siren wails outside and that is it for her. She sits up, angrily pushing the covers off her shoulders. Her eyes are so worn that they sting and smart and her body feels as if it's floating on a wave of tiredness. But it's no use trying to sleep. The adrenaline is running through her veins and her heart is beating loudly, threatening to break through her skin. While she may want nothing more than total oblivion for hours on end, the clock tells her that it's five in the morning and her body has other ideas.

Joan leans against the headboard. In the first light of morning, everything looks unreal. She strains her ears, listening out for her partner. All is quiet. Maybe he did go to bed after her. After he drawn her a hot bath and gave her a pair of his pyjamas (hers were all in the wash, that was supposed to be last night's chore). He didn't act as if he was putting a child to bed, but for the first time ever she thinks this is the first time Sherlock has come close to affection with her...

She shakes her head. It's bad enough that her memory has been trying to put the events of last night together, rather than sleeping. She is still trying to write the narrative of what happened when the switch happened... or didn't happen. It's all in pieces, just a blurry puzzle. She tries to recall it properly now. The bodies were being cleared up all around her while Mycroft cut the ties around her wrists and began to explain, her saying nothing in a stunned silence. But then they were interrupted, one of Mycroft's men had tapped him on the shoulder, extending a mobile to him.

"_Sir, I have no idea how he got this number. He is making threats to contact the NYPD and report Miss Watson as missing if he doesn't hear from her."_

Joan had stepped forward, understanding instantly and making a move to take the phone. She remembers mumbling something, probably asking to talk to him. Reassure him like always. Although she recalls her own feelings of relief that he was at the other end of the line. That he hadn't done something silly or harmful in the course of events. A hand taking her by the elbow stopped her. She looked up at Mycroft, who had a rather pained expression on his face.

"_Joan," _He had hesitated, his forehead creasing,_ "it may be in your best interests to stay elsewhere for tonight."_

She had known that Mycroft cared about her welfare. But something in his tone had hit her like a slap to the face. She was done with the night's events. Done with others making decisions over her-

"_Mr Holmes,"_ Her voice had cracked and her eyes were stinging but she wouldn't cry. She refused to after all she had to see and witness_. "I want to go home."_

For a moment, it appeared he was going to argue with her. _"As you wish."_ She remembered turning again, wanting to speak to Sherlock at long last. But the agent and the phone had gone. She got her own phone back before she left. Yet she couldn't find it in her to call Sherlock herself. Rather she avoided the urge to smash her phone to pieces and tried to forget that it had been retrieved from the body of one of her captors. She listened to the messages as a car took her back to the Brownstone. At Sherlock's last pleading note, she had bitten her lip so hard it drew blood. Her wrists had begun to tingle. Her body let her know it was aching. Her throat burned once more.

She had no idea how long the journey had taken. But Sherlock was out before the car had even rolled to a halt outside their home. He had thrown the door open and seemed to literally deflate at the sight of her.

"_Watson, thank god_."

He had helped her out. Held her by the wrists as he searched her face. His softness threw her off guard. The tingling stopped. Maybe he had been checking her pulse?

"_Are you hurt? Or feeling ill?"_

The tone of his voice was soft. Too soft maybe. Too numb like herself.

"_No... no. I just..." _

"_Bed?"_

Joan throws herself back into the present. Even though the bath had been hot and her room is warm she feels cold now. She should eat, although the idea seems impossible. Tea could work though.

She pads quietly in bare feet down the stairs. She remembers how strung out Sherlock had looked. Exposed like a raw nerve. Maybe he had crashed out on his bed thinking that she was going to do the same. He certainly didn't need waking up now. She flicks on a light. If only-

She turns and stops. The overturned furniture and scattered papers all over the floor make her heart race. She gasps audibly as she walks towards a table, not wanting to recognise the shapes of the objects lying on it but being unable to help it. The gleam of metal is like breaking open a lock. Jem's face, pale and sweaty, dashes in front of her. She turns quickly, trying to get away but she sees a chair placed directly in front of the table. Her imagination is several steps ahead.

She doesn't recollect this. She should have realised last night what Sherlock's eagerness to herd her upstairs meant. To get her clean and then to sleep- because he didn't want her to see _this_. Mycroft too, with his _suggestion_ of going elsewhere. He had been part of it as well. What had they done?

What had Sherlock been pushed to _do _for her?

She looks at the tools again. All lined up neatly like a parade. She makes a move to touch one of them- the tools, but the nausea that builds at the back of her throat is too much. Her mind is too much. She feels like yelling. The sickness builds and her chest pulls so tight that she has to blunder out of that room before she does something she feels she'll regret. Somehow she makes it to the kitchen. Attempts to make tea in the half-darkness. But her movements are so jerky that she knocks a mug off the counter and it sails to the floor and smashes, the pieces scattering from the point of impact.

It's like pressing a stop button. She gives up. She's tired and sick. She sits on one of the kitchen chairs, facing the entrance. Waiting for something else to happen to her. She stares into space and tries very hard not to think.

The kitchen light pops on and she blinks out of her trance.

"Watson?"

He must have heard the crashing ceramic. She eyes Sherlock blearily; he's still wearing yesterday's clothes. Rumpled and messy, and his hair sticking up at all angles. His eyes are wide and blazing with a tiredness to match her own, his paleness in his cheeks making him look even more alarming. At this point it would be hard to tell which one of them had been the one kidnapped. Who looks the most pathetic out of the two-

She can't fathom it. This Sherlock- _her_ Sherlock if she ever dared to be so possessive- is not the one who would create the scene of torture she just saw. He is the one who looks at the shattered pieces of mug on the floor and without any further words begins to pick them up.

She is unable to take this.

"I saw your torture kit."

He stops abruptly; a piece of mug skitters across the floor. He gets on his feet, arms stuck to his sides as if he's at attention. She's not intimidated by this act; she refuses _again_ to be out of control when for the past forty-eight hours she's been at the whim of someone else.

And this is _her partner_ she now has to deal with.

"Can you explain yourself, Sherlock?"

He blinks once, clenching his fists. "Not to you."

There is a silence. A mute conversation with their faces because they are both simply too tired to put it into audible sentences. They reach their conclusions soon enough.

"I had hoped that I could have taken it all away before you came back here but I want you to understand-"

"Make me a cup of tea before I scream at you."

He blows air through his nose, his shoulders heave in a jerky movement. Watson raises her eyebrow, just daring him to do otherwise. Again, there is a pause and again Sherlock's hands stretch and claw in a tense agony. But he struts to the counter and flicks the kettle on. She stares at his hands, wanting to look at anything but directly at him.

But then a teaspoon flashes at her and she has to close her eyes. That face again appears. She opens her eyes and sees Sherlock making her tea.

"I could have done with some of your... tools."

Sherlock goes as rigid as a board but he doesn't stop what he's doing. Joan's fingers dig themselves into the table but she can't stop the next sentence from tumbling out of her mouth.

"When I was being held captive, I had to perform medical surgery."

Sherlock's hand now hovers over the tea pot, stunned to motionlessness. Joan just wants to stop there but her mind and her heart have other ideas. She's bursting with what she remembers. She knows she can't stop if she wants to even try and get over this. And only Sherlock can know now.

"His cousin... his cousin Jem. He had been shot. I can't remember why- he- they never told me."

Sherlock turns to face her, "Watson?"

She matches his stare, realising that her hands have began to shake but there is nothing she can do. Her nails continue to groove into the wood, making dents. She feels like she stands on the edge before going over.

"All I had was some box cutters and cheap vodka but I made it work. _I made it work_. I got him out of the immediate danger but I kept saying he needed hospital care- that he would get worse..."

Sherlock takes a step towards her but says nothing. The kettle finishes boiling with an ominous click and the rumble of water dies away. Her voice grows louder.

"He... he thought that I was trying to escape somehow... or try and bargain with him I think... but then his cousin got critical and again I tried to tell him and- he... he shot Jem and-"

_Bam. Bam. Bam. _Joan Watson falls apart with three sharp gasps and bursts into tears. She drops her head into her hands, her fingers rake through her tangled hair, pulling at it. She's sobbing for the life of some man who had probably committed a load of atrocities but in her eyes had died needlessly. And now she knows that she is sobbing because Sherlock- _Sherlock_ would have committed something terrible without a moment's thought just because it was for _her _and all she can feel is despair at the thought of it. Two cartloads of guilt rolled into one and she needs him to be something other than what she thinks he's been.

She whispers his name without thinking. She asks for him and he responds. He crosses the space between them seemingly without even walking. Sinking to his knees in front of her, his hands pry hers from her hair, stopping her nails from digging into her flesh and his arms go around her. Encircling her. Her response is automatic. Instinctive. They've never done any more than gently pat each other on the arm over the course of their partnership but here and now Joan clings to Sherlock like she knows nothing else.

But then it goes sour. The comfort turns into something ugly. This is what she's wanted since she stepped into their house but she wishes she'd never seen that damn table and chair that threatens to ruin this. Bewilderment continues to hit, striking against her. She feels like she's swooping back up, back up to the top of her fear.

Sherlock cannot see all of this within her.

"You saw somebody that you tried to save die in front of you." He speaks as he continues to hold on, "You were probably the only person in that room who truly cared about his welfare. The guilt does _not_ belong to you, Watson."

"He shot him, Sherlock." She mumbles into his shirt, "He shot his cousin without thinking."

"You cannot be responsible for his actions."

She replies swiftly, "Am I responsible for yours?"

Sherlock quickly withdraws his arms and stares at her, open mouthed.

"What?"

"You were going to torture a man for me. For _me_."

She could have hit him and it would have caused less damage. What they had only moments ago dies away. He stumbles to his feet, shaking his head. He looks like a child realising the full horror of a enormous mistake for the first time, a child stumbling on a horrible truth. His face crumples and Joan has to wonder if he is about to cry.

"Is this...?" he trails off, but Joan understands and nods, wiping tears from her face. She couldn't sleep because of that young man's face but now it's the man in front of her that haunts her. She expects an angry retort, a lashing out. For a moment, Sherlock's face clouds and she thinks she's going to get it.

Instead, Sherlock's frame sags.

"I... I _want_ to say sorry, Joan."

Her eyes go wide, not expecting it. He stops and starts, his chin lifted upwards and deliberately not looking at her. His fingers start their terrible clenching once more.

"But I realise that it may account for nothing. You told me, quite accurately, I might add, that I only apologise once I have what I want and here..." he lifts his arms, gesturing towards her, "such is the case."

Now she feels slapped. She tries to refuse to be understanding with all her power. Tries to refuse the fact that Sherlock's fear was as real as her own- still is. _Her_ face had haunted _him_.

She doesn't want to know that.

"Sherlock-"

"You had a death warrant hanging over your head. I wondered if I was ever going to see you again. One man stood between me and all of that."

"That is not a justification." She replies weakly.

"To me at the time it was. And even now it still is. Nothing would have morally stopped me from keeping you from being killed- _that_ is the only reasoning I have, Watson. And I am sorry if it's not what you wanted."

He doesn't raise his voice at all, but it's too much. She gets to her feet, unable to spend another second in this situation. She made a mistake admitting what she did. Sherlock sucks in another breath as she stands at his level. He looks like he's run a marathon. His hand impulsively clutches at her arm and for a passing moment, they can only look at each other. Joan feels warmth rush towards him. She wants to respond and yet- yet what is here now is _weak_. Something blocks them, keeping them apart. She feels as if she's the one who's pushed the gap further with her words, her demands.

Perhaps in time...

"We're both too tired to talk about this now." She knocks off his hand and sweeps by him, determined to make it to her room without collapsing.

"I am in awe of you, Watson." He calls after her. She can't help but spin on her heel and see him standing there in the kitchen, still looking lost. It's to her horror that he now sees his eyes going dangerously red and he wipes his them angrily. He holds his hand up again, trying to close the space she's put between them.

"My brother and I resulted to less than desirable ways in trying to save you and- I- I lost my temper several times during those hours. Yet in that same time, where you were the one whose life was at stake, you tried to save others." His voice tears up with the strain, "I realise now... I've let you down."

"Sherlock-"

"In future, I will attempt to avoid doing that at all costs. But I want you to know... your efforts to make me a better man has not gone to waste, despite what I've done recently."

She cannot speak. She doesn't know how. She still cannot connect the dots and make sense and make everything right in the face of so much wrong. She needs time now. Time to deal with new ghosts and new fears. She worries for the man opposite her but the worry for herself is far greater.

"I just never want to see those things in this house again."

He nods. There is no more energy in either of them to extract any more about the situation they're in. She trudges up the stairs, knowing Sherlock is listening to every step. She hopes that the next few hours will change things. Perhaps they can talk it over again. Maybe it will make more sense the next time around.

She welcomes the sleep now. Where she can't see the hurt on Sherlock's face or feel her own powerful confusion striking at her in beat with her own heart.

Later that morning, she wakes to a hot cup of tea sitting on a makeshift table beside her bed.


End file.
